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South, down into midtown, and way to the west, right below the bridge that led Arkham into Gotham County, there was a neighborhood called the Coventry. In it was another slum called the Village, yet another damp shithole in Gotham that had been left unprotected by the Bat.
Red Hood had been primarily expanding his territory farther southeast towards Robbinsville (ha) and the harbor on the edge of the Bob Kane Sound, and, tactically, he’d need to ease his influence farther north to cover Newtown, too, before he could descend into the Upper East Side. A lot of upper Midtown and most of Uptown was riddled with slums, gang activity, and various buildings that weren't up to code. Red Hood knew he wouldn’t be able to keep all of North Gotham safe by himself, especially not with the Bat hunting him, but he couldn’t just… not try.
In short, the Village was one of the areas further down his to-do list where he wanted to spread his influence. It’d take a while, because the Alley was in southeast part of Uptown and the Coventry was in the northwest part of Midtown, but he wanted to cover it nonetheless. Plus, he’d like to keep an eye on Arkham, too.
The mortuary was right by Hood’s turf, just south of the Sprang, but the morgue itself was in the Coventry. Hood made occasional visits to the mortuary for… many reasons, and he had some staff there on his payroll. Unfortunately, he didn’t have anyone from the morgue itself. Not yet, anyway.
All this to say, the Red Hood had heard reports of unnaturally clean beheadings from his mortuary informants. Normally, this wouldn’t put him off too much. He himself had taken a few heads when he made his debut, after all, but the worrying started when, while on patrol, he heard some kids singing a creepy rhyme while they took turns with the jump rope in the dilapidated basketball court.
“If you’re good he’ll stay away
If you’re bad he’ll make you pay
Simon, Simon,
Simon Dark.”
Lurks in the shadows,
Hides in the park,
Simon, Simon
Simon Dark."
Hood silently dropped down from the fire escape of the building he’d been perched on, but scuffed his boots loudly enough to be audible as he approached. Two kids flinched, one dropped her end of the rope, the fourth one tensed, but all of them relaxed a little when they saw it was him.
“‘Sup, Hood,” one of the boys said. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and edged backward to give Hood some room as he approached. Smart kid.
“Hey.”
The one girl fiddled with her hands. “D’ya need somethin’?”
Hood shook his head. “Not righ' now. Curious about'cha little rhyme, though.”
The third kid, wearing a black hoodie with, white, purple, and yellow stripes, hunched their shoulders. “Well, y'know Old Toby?”
Red Hood nodded. Tobias Thompson was an old, tired man who was squatting in one of the buildings that Hood’s people had just finished renovating. He didn’t talk much, and he didn’t do much, but despite being a user, he didn’t deal to the kids, so Hood let him be.
“Well,” the girl cut in, “his daughter lives down in th' Village.”
Hm. “Okay?”
The first boy spoke up again. “Maggie’s son, Teo, comes by every week or so to drop off some stuff for Ol’ Tobes. He’s a little older'n me, but definitely not any older than sixteen.”
Striped Hoodie spoke up again. “An' we heard him hummin’ a rhyme when he went to the old bodega run by Aunt Marcy to pick up some soup, so we asked. It was too compl’cated to be somethin’ he made up.”
Red Hood snorted. “Not fond of Teo, are ya?”
The girl laughed. “Opposite, actually. Alex has a crush they’s terrible at hiding.”
Alex folded their arms. “I do not.”
The boy sighed. “Siblings.” Hood nodded understandingly, and the boy grinned at him. “You got any sisters?”
“...One,” Hood admitted. “And two little brothers. Little menaces, I’m telling you.”
“Anyway,” the boy said, gesturing at the second boy, who had been silent since Hood’s approach, “Emil asked about the song. Teo told us about the Coventry’s knockoff version’a’you, some guy named Simon.”
Hood raised an eyebrow, even though the kids couldn’t see it. “Knockoff me?”
The girl gave him a crooked grin. “Creepy mask, wears red, nice to th’ street people. Spooky. Disappears easy, pays for his groceries even though he doesn’t gotta. ‘Pparently he steals books, reads ‘em, and then gives ‘em back. Stuff like Poe and Moby.”
“I ‘eard he saved s’m people from Eddie,” the little boy, Emil, added.
Hood tilted his head. "Who?"
“Eddie the Machete,” the girl elaborated. “Some psycho who came in from Gotham County an’ started hackin' away at folks in Midtown. Simon stopped ‘im and the cops shot ‘im dead for it.”
The older boy snorted. “Bull, Marcie. Simon was back two days later and one day dropped Eddie in the cops’ office, dead, with a note stuck to his face.”
“Who told you that?” asked Alex.
“Foster mom’s a forensic,” he said. “I heard her on the phone.”
Alex froze. Marcie gaped and then whooped. “Maxxie got adopted!”
Maxxie rolled his eyes. “Fostered! 'S different!” He turned to give Hood an exasperated look. “This is why I didn’t tell… Them.”
The Red Hood was gone.
Marcie snickered. “Disappears. Like Simon.”
Alex made a face. “Or Batman. Y’hear he just… disappears mid-conversation?”
“Don’t compare ‘em!” Max whisper-yelled, throwing his hands up. “Hood doesn’t like the Bat. We don’t wanna piss 'im off.”
“He’s not even here anymore!” Marcie whisper-yelled back.
Alex pointed at the rooftop. “Yeah he is.” The other three children turned to see the Red Hood perched on the edge of the building, silently, like a grotesque. “See? Like Batman.”
The Red Hood snorted before disappearing, and the kids continued to bicker behind him as he made his way home for the night.